World History, Grade 6, Student Sources
Supplement VII The Muslim Empires
Source #2
“the incidence
of taxation fell more heavily on a Muslim than a non-Muslim (Le Bon).”
On the other
hand, many scholars argue that the jizya fell more heavily on non-Muslims and
is oppressive. Jizya or jizyah (Arabic: جزية ǧizya; Ottoman Turkish: جزيه
cizye) is a per capita yearly tax historically levied on non-Muslim subjects.
Jizya is based on Qur’an 9:29 and Muhammad’s instructions in Sahih
Muslim 4294 to subjugate non-Muslims and accept Islam; and if they refuse
that, to invite them to enter the Islamic social order by paying the jizya,
the non-Muslim poll tax, and accepting subservient status; and if they refuse
both, to go to war with them. The triple choice of conversion, subjugation, or
war is founded on Muhammad’s words.
The Qur’an states:
“Fight those who believe not in Allāh, nor the Last Day, nor hold that
forbidden which has been forbidden by Allāh and His Messenger, nor acknowledge
the Religion of Truth—from those who have been given the Book—until they pay
the jizyah by hand and are subdued” (9:29 ).
The practice
began with the Quran and the hadiths that mention jizya (cf. Sabet, Amr [2006], The American Journal of Islamic
Social Sciences 24:4, Oxford; pp. 99–100). In fact, taxes levied on
non-Muslim subjects were among the main sources of revenues collected by some
Islamic polities, such as the Ottoman Empire (cf. Oded Peri; Gilbar [Ed], Gad [1990]. Ottoman
Palestine, 1800-1914: Studies in economic and social history. Leiden: E.J.
Brill. p. 287).
Conversion to Islam was a secondary concern since the dhimma were taxed to support the Ottoman state. Non-Muslims are
dhimmis, that is, a dhimmī (Arabic: ذمي ḏimmī, is a historical term
referring to a protected person. Rights are granted by the Ottoman state. Non-Muslims were taxed and thereafter
either conscripted or enslaved as well. Beginning with Murad I in the 14th
century and extending through the 17th century, the Ottoman Empire employed
devşirme (دوشيرم), a kind of tribute or conscription system where young
Christian boys were taken from communities in the Balkans, enslaved and
converted to Islam and later employed either in the Janissary military corps or
the Ottoman administrative system.
Historically,
the jizya tax has been understood in Islam as a fee for protection provided by
the Muslim ruler to non-Muslims, for the exemption from military service for
non-Muslims, for the permission to practice a non-Muslim faith with some
communal autonomy in a Muslim state, and as material proof of the non-Muslims'
submission to the Muslim state and its laws. Jizya has also been understood as
a ritual humiliation of the non-Muslims in a Muslim state for not converting to
Islam. “Akbar (#Source 8) abolished the Muslim right
to enslave prisoners captured in war, repealed a tax levied on Hindu pilgrims
and abolished the jizyah or poll tax on non-Muslims” (Mughal Empire, The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, 2009).
Bat Ye’or, author of the history of religious minorities in the Muslim world and
modern European politics, noted in Mark Durie’s The Third Choice (cf. The Third Choice- Islam, Dhimmitude
and Freedom
Deror Books, 2010):
Deror Books, 2010):
“The strict scholarly rationalism of the author is particularly
evident in the chapter on the theological significance of jizya, the
head tax paid by non-Muslims under Islamic rule. Here Durie brings numerous and
irrefutable sources illustrating the meaning, implications and religious
justification of the jizya, which is the cost paid by non-Muslims for
the right to live, albeit in humiliation. The jizya ritual, writes
Durie, forces the dhimmi subject – through his participation in it – ‘to
forfeit his very head if he violates any of the terms of the dhimma covenant,
which has spared his life’. The author sheds new light on the jizya ritual,
which he calls an ‘enactment of one’s own decapitation’. His discussion of this
virtual beheading brings new depth to the Muslim-non-Muslim relationship.”
Durie conveys the ritualized
brutality of jizya –a virtual beheading:
“For the dhimmi, the annual jizya
payment was a powerful and public symbolic expression of the jihad-dhimmitude
nexus, which fixed the horizon of the dhimmi’s world. Although the
ritual varied in its specific features, its essential character was an
enactment of a beheading, in which one of the recurrent features was a blow to
the neck of the dhimmi, at the very point when he makes his payment (p.
131).”
Durie goes on to note the devastating
impact of the jizya on dhimmis:
“The
intended result of the jizya ritual is for the dhimmi to lose all
sense of his own personhood. In return for this loss, the dhimmi was
supposed to feel humility and gratitude towards his Muslim masters. Al-Mawardi
said that the jizya head tax was either a sign of contempt, because of
the dhimmis’ unbelief, or a sign of the mildness of Muslims, who granted
them quarter (instead of killing or enslaving them) so humble gratitude was the
intended response.
The remarks of
al-Mawardi and Ibn ‘Ajibah make clear that its true meaning is to be found in
psychological attitudes of inferiority and indebtedness imposed upon
non-Muslims living under Islam, as they willingly and gratefully handed over
the jizya in service to the Muslim community (p. 141).”
He notes this from the
Koranic commentary of Ibn Kathir:
“Allah
said,
‘until they pay the
Jizyah’, if they do not choose to embrace Islam, ‘with willing
submission’, in defeat and
subservience, ‘and feel themselves subdued.’ disgraced, humiliated and
belittled.”
Therefore, Muslims are not allowed to honor the people of Dhimmah
or elevate them above Muslims, for they are miserable, disgraced and
humiliated (p. 142).
In light of this information perhaps re-consider an answer for
#7, History Test #6—The Muslim Empires: “Explain three reasons why the Ottoman
sultans were able to successfully rule such a large area of diverse societies
for so long.”
·
Religious tolerance
Also,
religious intolerance is compatible with Question #6 about benevolent rule. The
sultans would maintain that they are benevolent rulers but they are ruling
through humiliating taxation and state hegemony. Who or what do the dhimmis need protection from but the
sultans and the Muslim majority population who use the power of the state to
dispossess them.
In the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries the Ottoman Empire was the so-called “sick man of Europe.” A second
#7 question asks: “Explain in broad terms the economic factors that lead to the
fall of empires.”
Potential answers include:
Ø “revenue
stream ends-higher taxes/debasement of currency”
In 1856, the Ottoman Empire lost
a revenue stream once the jizyah was abolished which
weakened the regime.